Are You Making These Common Mistakes in Your Start-up?

In spite of being exciting, walking through the entrepreneurial terrain can be quite overwhelming. The whole journey is nothing less than a rocky road where one has no one but themselves to take the onus of every decision. Most people, as they head on to test the water with their business idea make a lot of mistakes in the journey. While the idea is to quickly learn, unlearn and grow, it’s always intelligent to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid making the same ones.

In that light, Entrepreneur India spoke to Chetan Khaitan, the co-founderofToolsvilla. His company is one of the largest portals countrywide that deals in machine tools and equipment. Toolsvilla solves the big procurement gap in its specialized niche in terms of both product availability and pricing.

Navigating the start-up with more than 5000 registered customers within only 2 years of operation, Khaitan has some nuggets dipped in gold for every aspiring entrepreneur. Some of his suggestions have been described below.

Not Understanding Customers & the Market

As a company making its way to the marketplace, one of its fundamental pillars should be to keep customer interest on the highest pedestal. Every step, starting from product design to the sales pitch must be focused on the customers’ needs and pain points. Very often, entrepreneurs tend to divulge their attention to their own offering more than solving their customers’ problem. However, the idea should be to keep the customer as the epicentre and evolve as and when needed. “When we started Toolsvilla, we had designed it like any other e-commerce website. However, after studying the customer behavior through heat map tools & feedbacks, we simplified the user interface (UI) of the website. Our customers were not very tech savvy and hence, the checkout process had to be customized to ease out the buying process”, recalls Khaitan.

Responding as per customer needs is indeed pivotal in driving the success of a venture. It’s also important to respond as per the market scenario driven by the demand-supply dynamics. Failing to do so results in poor strategy and compromised execution.

Trying Your Hand at Everything

It’s important that one enters a market within a specific niche. Today’s world is characterized by an extremely diverse offering, making market entry simple but capturing position difficult. Every business must identify their USP and strengths. Based on that, the founders must pick their niche, build on it and slowly scale up to other verticals.

Over-indulging Initially

Many young entrepreneurs, especially those who are equipped with a sizeable amount of funds have a tendency to spend on the extravagant side. While they might be able to afford it, it could put the company under a lot of pressure in the future that is to come. Khaitan suggests, “Starting small makes the start easy. One should make the most of the existing resources and avoid unnecessary expenses early on.” In his opinion, operating lean helps companies take quicker decisions and reinvent faster.